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the best writing tool
One of the best writing tools I have is this: Not writing. Let me explain: When I decided to write my first novel, I sublet my room in a crowded Brooklyn loft and moved to a barrier island in North Carolina for three months. Amazingly, my boss at the time gave me that time off,…
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how to start writing
“I want to write a book, but I don’t know where to start.” People tell me a lot, and I often feel excited when I hear it, because answering it is fun. As John Cage, the experimental composer, said, “Begin anywhere.” Literally. Just start writing. It can be the first page of Chapter 1, or…
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on “being a writer”
“I’ve always wanted to write a book, but I’m not a writer.” I hear this a lot. Maybe you’ve said it before. Hearing that always makes me smile because it reminds me of an inside joke my best friend and I have. Whenever we’re grocery shopping together, and one of us is pushing a cart,…
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on writing awe
When I was growing up, we had some relatives I’d see about once a year. Without fail, every year, they’d be shocked about how much I’d grown. “You’re in eighth grade already?!” they’d say, looking around for another adult to share this revelation with. “How is that possible? Just yesterday you were in diapers!” I’d…
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on finding “om”
Yesterday I went to a yoga class where we began and ended by chanting “Om.” The first one, after only five minutes of meditating, was dissonant. It sounded like everyone had picked their own pitch, totally ignoring everyone else. The final “om,” though, after 55 minutes of hatha yoga, was completely in tune. Every single…
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80s rock & an andean reverie
In 2022, three friends and I went to the Sacred Valley. We stayed in Cusco, the capital of the Inca Empire, and spent the week exploring the Andes, Andean towns, Macchu Picchu. I was in awe: these staggeringly sophisticated people had invented agricultural methods that produced more than half the food products the world eats…
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up, but not north
There’s a moment in the novel Flatland after the Square comes back from his foray into the 3D world — the land of Cubes — and he’s trying to remember what it was like. The memory fades, so he clings to the only phrase he can think of to describe it: “Up, but not north.”…
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on what to do with weakness
The other day my friend was telling me about her acting woes. She’s auditioning a lot, she said, but none of the roles felt “right.” “It’d be better if I wrote my own parts,” she said. “But I can’t see myself actually writing. And I’m not a self-starter. I just know myself – I’d never…
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on observing
If you’ve ever been to yoga class, you’ve probably — hopefully — heard some variation of this: “Just notice.” “Don’t judge.” “Just observe the sensations that come up.” This is the core essence of yoga, as I understand it. (I used to think it was getting super flexible and doing cool arm balances that I…
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on self-trust
In 2013 I won a major writing contest. The editors called to gush over my story. “Tell us about yourself,” said one. “You’re only 25 and you wrote this incredible story. Where did it come from?” I panicked. Any minute now, they were going to find me out. They’d notice I was not national-prize-winning material,…
Kimberly Bunker, MFA 